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Thursday
November 30
- THE
ABC's OF THE TURNER PRIZE: "The Turner Prize is probably
the biggest advert for the British art world. Headline-grabbing
exhibitions aside, it is the one time the esoteric world of the
‘YBAs’ - Young British Artists - meets the people. For all its
outrageousness, once an artist is nominated for the Turner Prize,
they become part of the establishment." Here's an annotated
guide through the workings of the Turner. The
Scotsman 11/30/00
- DO
THEY CALL THIS SUCKING UP TO YOUR BOARD? The director of the
Irish Museum of Modern Art is taking the museum to court to prevent
its board from advertising his job. The museum board recently
failed to roll over the director's contract when it expired and
propose to open the post up for competition. Irish
Times 11/30/00
- ONUS
ON MUSEUMS: "Under the sweeping guidelines, which were
approved last month by the American Association of Museums and
the Association of Art Museum Directors, museums must research
and disclose on their Web sites the backgrounds of all art works
acquired after 1933, when the Nazis took power in Germany, and
produced before the conclusion of World War II in 1945."
New York Times 11/30/00 (one-time
registration required for access)
- PLAYING
IT SAFE FOR TURNER: Wolfgang Tillmans, who this week won the
Turner Prize, "is on the fashionable cusp between photography,
art, and fashion, and was a safe choice."
Financial Times 11/30/00
- BEFORE
THE WATER COMES: China plans to spend $60 million on a new
museum to house a treasure trove of relics being saved from the
giant Three Gorges Dam." New
Jersey Online (AP) 11/30/00
- QUALITY
SELLS: So how's the art market doing so far this season? "While
the secondary market is looking sluggish, serious collectors are
showing increased enthusiasm for major works by major artists.
The result, according to many, is a feeding frenzy for top material."
Forbes 11/29/00
- MICHELANGELO'S
FLAW: A long-lost statue of Christ made by Michelangelo has
been discovered in a small church outside of Rome. "It is
well known that Michelangelo worked on an earlier version which
he had to discard because of a black line in the marble which
appeared on the face of Christ. But its whereabouts were never
known." The Telegraph (London)
11/30/00
- AUSTRIANS
TO RETURN KLIMTS: The Austrian government recommends returning
paintings by Gustav Klimt stolen during the Nazi era. One of the
paintings is worth $9 million "The artworks to be returned
include 'Lady with Hat and Feather Boa', a showpiece of the Austrian
State Belvedere Museum in Vienna. BBC
11/30/00
- SMILING
SCIENCE: A neuro-scientist believes the enigma of the Mona
Lisa's smile might be due to an optical trick. "If you look
at the painting so that your gaze falls on the background or on
Mona Lisa's hands ... it would appear much more cheerful than
when you look directly at her mouth." Discovery
11/30/00
Wednesday
November 29
- TURNER
WINNER: This year's Turner Prize goes to a photographer for
the first time. The £20,000 prize, which has specialized in controversy
in recent years, was awarded to Wolfgang Tillmans, a "German
whose special line is taking pornographic homosexual pictures."
The Telegraph (London) 11/29/00
- NEW
YORK'S DISAPPOINTING FALL SEASON: For the first time in memory,
collectively the major museum shows in Manhattan are a flaccid,
uninspired disappointment. "Perhaps it's an anomaly. Certainly
it's the first time in memory that not a single big fall show
will be remembered as being of more than cursory artistic significance.
Tourism is one of Manhattan's biggest industries, and cultural
tourism is a linchpin to the city's economy. For art museums,
the urge is strong to court a huge and churning general public
that's more willing than ever to sample their offerings. While
a single art season does not a watershed make, the fall 2000 season
in the four big art museums certainly reflects an unmistakable
long-term change. They've been aggressive in wooing the crowd."
Los Angeles Times 11/29/00
- LEGACIES:
Why did New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani (not a politician particularly
known for his love of visual art) go out of his way to get $67
million to the Guggenheim Museum for a new downtown museum? "Civic
leaders have a responsibility to leave cities far greater and
more beautiful than [they] were transmitted to us."
Financial Times 11/29/00
- NEW
GUGGENHEIM NOT CERTAIN: For the $678 million project to go
forward, the City Council has to sign off on it, as do the state
and federal governments. The museum, of course, must raise hundreds
of millions of dollars to build the project, which will include
a performing arts center and public parks and plazas at three
East River piers. New York Times 11/29/00
(one-time registration required for access)
- JERUSALEM'S
OWN SPACE NEEDLE? An "almost 500-foot-tall tower rising
above the old city that will have a restaurant close to the top
and a synagogue for only 36 at the very top" is being planned
for one of the world's most historic cities. Why is it necessary
to mar the view of the city with a modern monstrosity?
The Idler 11/28/00
- THE
BM'S GREAT GREAT COURT: The British Museum's new £100 million
Great Court was birthed in controversy. But the critics are raving:
"My overall impression is that Norman Foster has given us
the most surprising, and most sensationally beautiful, space in
London." But will success turn the venerable BM into a "recreational"
museum like the Tate or Bilbao? The
Telegraph (London) 11/29/00
- CEZANNE
AS BUSINESS MODEL: "University of Chicago economist David
Galenson charts the sea change from artistic tradition to reinvention,
using the auction prices of paintings as his measure of value.
Correlating the price of a work of art with the age of the artist
at the time of the painting's execution, Galenson mapped the patterns
of success and innovation over the past century in art history.
His essays describe French and American painting, but their relevance
is much broader." Salon 11/28/00
Tuesday
November 28
- GUGGENHEIM
MAKES DEAL WITH NYC FOR NEW MUSEUM: The Guggenheim Museum
has reached an agreement with New York City on the site for its
new $678 million 520,000-square-foot Frank Gehry-designed museum
complex in Lower Manhattan. The project includes 279,000 square
feet of public parkland, an outdoor sculpture garden and a 1,200-seat
performing arts center. NY mayor Rudolph Giuliani is "also
expected to announce that the city will provide the museum with
$67.8 million — 10% of its total cost — in capital funds."
New York Daily News 11/28/00
- ATTENTION
COUPON CLIPPERS: Sotheby's and Christie's have asked a judge
to allow them to pay $100 million of the $512 million settlement
against them with certificates good for buying art in the future.
"Sellers, they said, could have up to five years to use their
coupons and could transfer them through a jointly appointed certificate
administrator, which they said would create a secondary market."
The New York Times 11/28/00 (one-time
registration required for access)
- CAN'T
BE MADE TO SELL: Earlier this year the San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art sued heirs to a $44 million Picasso, claiming that
the trust that owns the painting reneged on a commitment to sell
Picasso's 1932 masterpiece "Nu au fauteuil noir" to
the museum for $44 million. Last week, a San Francisco judge threw
out the case. San Francisco Chronicle
11/28/00
- TIFFED
OFF AT THE TURNER: What is it about the Turner Prize? "What
gets up my nose most about the Turner is the downright dishonest
way in which the whole exercise is presented as rigorous and objective.
It would like to compare itself to the Booker, but unlike the
book world, in which ultimately the public can have its say by
either buying or not buying books, the much smaller art world
is maintained largely by the patronage of art institutions and
major collectors." The Independent
(London) 11/26/00
- EVEN
BETTER THE SECOND TIME? Controversy precedes the awarding
of this year's Turner Prize as it turns out one of the favorites
- Glenn Brown’s canvas, "The Loves of Shepherds 2000,"
appears to be "a stroke-by-stroke copy of Anthony Roberts’s
jacket illustration for the 1974 Pan paperback edition of
a Robert Heinlein science fiction novel." The
Times (London) 11/28/00
- LEONARDO'S
TOPLESS MONA LISA: Did Leonardo paint a suacy topless Mona
Lisa? The Italian press has been hailing "the topless Gioconda",
a nude pastiche of Leonardo's Mona Lisa that art historians now
claim was copied from an original by the Florentine master himself.
The painting is known as Monna Vanna, and experts argue that "Leonardo
painted a lost saucy parody of the Mona Lisa for his patron Giuliano
de Medici. The Guardian (London) 11/28/00
- AN
EXPENSIVE CHANGE OF HEART: An
Australian art collector puts up a painting valued at $1 million
for auction, but then has a change of mind and decides to donate
the work, by an important Aussie artist, to the National Gallery.
The change of heart may cost him though - he's still liable for
Sotheby's seller's commission, estimated to be as mush as
$200,000. The
Age (Melbourne) 11/28/00
Monday
November 27
- VENICE
UNDER WATER: This month Venice has recorded its third-worst
flood since 1900, endangering the city's artwork and buildings.
The city wants to work on building new barriers to keep the water
out but environmentalists oppose the idea. The
Art Newspaper 11/27/00
- WHY
NO BARRIERS? There is a fear that by closing them for
100-300 hours a year—and there are some 8,600 hours in a year—it
would affect the exchange of water between the sea and the
lagoon, and that the lagoon would become polluted. As the
Special Law for Venice says that the lagoon is inseparable
from the historic city, it is not possible to act on one part
rather than the whole. The Art
Newspaper 11/27/00
- DESIGN
TRIUMPH:
The controversy that plagued the British Museum every step of
its redesign - including the public outcry over its use of the
wrong kind of stone in its new $97 million portico - seems to
have finally subsided. "To visitors to the Great Court, this
storm in a wine goblet will mean little if anything. In 10 years,
few will know or care what all the fuss was for. What they will
know, instead, is one of the most extraordinary covered squares
to be found in any city, ancient or modern. The
Guardian (London) 11/27/00
- FEMINISM
LITE:
The US’s first women’s museum opened in Dallas last month, but
visitors are unlikely to walk away with a broad knowledge of women’s
accomplishments, artistic or otherwise. "[The Women’s Museum]
is an institution as notable for what it omits as what it contains,
a watery survey of female accomplishment that for the most part
glosses over the conditions - i.e., a couple of centuries of sexual
inequality and its attendant ills - that make such an institution
necessary in the first place." Salon
11/27/00
- THE
ROWDY MUSEUM NEXT DOOR: Melbourne's new $290 million museum,
which opened last month, has upset its neighbors. "They appear
to be desperately reacting to their own financial difficulties
by panicking into holding activities which will not only degrade
the Museum of Victoria but also degrade the Carlton area and alienate
the residents." Financial Review
11/27/00
- NOT
SO FAST:
Just a few years ago the internet was being touted as likely to
revolutionize the world of art sales. Its success hasn’t been
nearly so pervasive, but "even the skeptics did not predict
the problems that have since assailed art and antiques online
sites. The weakest have closed, some are desperately in need of
more cash from increasingly skeptical venture capitalists, others
have seen their share prices plunge and even Sotheby's has been
forced to amalgamate its two sites." The
Telegraph (London) 11/27/00
Sunday
November 26
- WHERE
THE MONEY IS: It's become fashionable to deride the big money
in art. "But what's so special about art? People seldom climb
into pulpits to lament that commodity broking, or insurance, or
even interior decoration has become 'too money orientated'. Why
is it that art alone is polluted by the appearance of cash in
more than moderate quantities? And what, for that matter, is so
very awful about largish rewards being handed out even for 'silly'
works of art? More tragic things happen in the world than foolish
artists getting undeservedly enriched." The
Telegraph (London) 11/25/00
- ALL
ABOUT CONTEXT: The Museum of Modern Art's new temporary digs
outside Manhattan promise to change the context of the art and
the experience of seeing it. New York
Times 11/26/00 (one-time registration
required for access)
- REM
KOOLHAAS: "His architecture is bracing and unsettling
and even though nothing he has done yet has had the same popular
impact as Frank Gehry's Guggenheim, he is clearly going to be
the next big thing." The Observer
(London) 11/26/00
- MICHELANGELO'S
ANATOMY: Scholars have argued for years over the unusual misshapen
appearance of the left breast of Michelangelo's marble statue
'Night'. Experts have agreed that its unusual appearance is intentional
and not due to an error but art historians and plastic surgeons
have argued that it reflects the artist's supposed lack of interest
in, or unfamiliarity with, the nude female figure. Now, experts
propose that Michelangelo deliberately set out to portray a woman
with breast cancer." The Independent
(London) 11/26/00
Friday
November 24
- THE
VERY GENEROUS KIMBELL: Fort Worth's Kimbell Museum, which
surprised the art world earlier this year when it was revealed
that the museum paid $1.5 million in salary to two of its board
members, has finally filed its tax return for last year. "The
generosity of the board toward Cline and the Fortsons was paralleled
by the nearly $1.6 million dispensed to its favored charities
- more than five times the amount it gave in 1998. Many of the
charities' boards are heavily weighted with Kimbell board members,
kinfolk, or employees, in spite of foundation claims to the contrary."
Fort Worth Weekly 11/22/00
- MOSES
ONLINE: The cleaning and restoration of Michelangelo's "Moses"
is being done live over the internet. Viewers can tune in any
time and see how the project is progressing. "We don't just
want to clean and restore the monument. We want to make it even
more well known than it already is. People will be able to follow
the whole process of restoration minute by minute and day by day.
It's a way of letting them feel a part of it."
CNN.com 11/24/00
Thursday
November 23
- IN
DEFENSE OF THE "DIFFICULT":
In a televised lecture (excerpted here) on the state of contemporary
art, Tate Modern Director Nicholas Serota champions work that
is transgressive and beyond immediate understanding. "For
me, the undoubted shock, even disgust, provoked by the work is
part of its appeal. Art should be transgressive. Life is not all
sweet." The
Independent (London) 11/23/00
Wednesday
November 22
- MICHELANGELO
RESTORATION: Michelangelo's statue of Moses in Rome is to
get its first restoration in 200 years. Michelangelo worked on
the statue in the early 1500s. New
Jersey Online 11/21/00
- SOME
OF AMERICA'S EARLIEST PAINTINGS: A caver in Wisconsin discovered
a series of drawings in a cave that turn out to be 1,100 years
old. "Experts said among the cave paintings were the remains
of a moccasin and birch bark torches that may have been used by
ancestors of the Ho-Chunk tribe (which now operates a casino in
southern Wisconsin). National Geographic
11/22/00
- MAYBE
IT'S BEEN LOST? A collector says he lent the New York Academy
of Art a painting worth $1 million on the condition that the school
return it to him when he asked for it back. But the school failed
to return it and he's filed suit. New
York Post 11/22/00
- CAPITOL
PLAN: A $265 million plan to expand the US Capitol building
in Washington is taking shape. The large 588,000 suqre-foot addition
will be underground. "The Capitol Visitor Center, containing
auditoriums, a museum-size exhibition hall and space for future
congressional use as well as the usual visitor facilities, will
be the biggest and most significant addition to the Capitol in
nearly a century and a half." Washington
Post 11/22/00
- PT
BARNUM OF ART: In the first half of the 20th Century Chick
Austin brought a showman's touch to American art. "Not only
did Austin promote artists like Picasso, Balthus, Mondrian and
Dali when they were virtually unknown in the United States, but
he also amassed an important collection of masterworks (especially
Baroque painting, Dutch still lifes and Poussin) on view at the
Atheneum to this day. Alfred Barr, the founding director of the
Museum of Modern Art, told Austin: 'You did things sooner and
more brilliantly than any one'." New
York Observer 11/22/00
Tuesday
November 21
- STOLEN
PAINTING RETURNED: Washington's National Gallery is returning
a painting to the heir of a collector from whom the painting was
stolen by the Nazis. "The painting, 'Still Life with Fruit
and Game' by Flemish artist Frans Snyders, depicts a large basket
of colorful fruit on a red tablecloth, surrounded by dead game,
including birds and a small deer." New
York Times 11/20/00 (one-time registration
required for access)
- HITLER'S
PRIVATE ART COLLECTION WAS LEGAL? During the Second World
War Hitler set up a private museum in Linz and had it stocked
with treasures. The last surviving member of the team that acquired
the art says that it was all obtained legally and none of it was
stolen. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
11/20/00
- ATTORNEYS
WHO WIN: The attorneys representing the 100,000 plaintiffs
who sued Sotheby's and Christie's for price fixing stand to make
$27 million for their work after negotiating a $512 million settlement.
New York Times 11/20/00 (one-time
registration required for access)
- GIOTTO
OR NOT? Scholars are arguing about whether the bones found
under the Duomo in Florence are those of Renaissance painter Giotto.
Those who believe it's the painter base their identification on
"an analysis of the skeleton. Reconstructing the face, they
came up with a strong likeness to what may or may not be a Giotto
self-portrait in a fresco." A planned reburial of the bones
was put on hold while the identity got sorted out, but now it's
on again for Jan. 8, the anniversary of the painter's death.
Nando Times 11/20/00
Monday
November 20
- SWISS
BANKS AND THE HOLOCAUST: Swiss banks plan to distribute $1.25
billion in reparations to Holocaust survivors. "Until just
recently, Swiss bankers were demanding impossible-to-produce death
certificates and other documentation before they would pay out
claims." But many of the survivors or their heirs are contesting
the settlement. New Jersey Online
11/20/00
- BILBAO'S
FANCY NEW AIRPORT: "As
it yaws into view from the window of your incoming jet, the new
Bilbao airport looks like a giant bird or plane that has made
it to the ground shortly ahead of you. Perched on a virgin hillside
site, untainted by the usual miasma of support buildings, Santiago
Calatrava's operatic design, known locally as la paloma (the dove),
is as precious as it is special. It has been designed - unlike,
say, Heathrow or Gatwick, which have grown as if organically -
as a gateway to the Basque capital, which in recent years has
become a showcase for show-off contemporary architecture."
The Guardian (London) 11/20/00
- CHAGALL'S
HOMETOWN CELEBRATES ITS SON: For decades the Soviet hometown
of Marc Chagall acted as if the artist had never existed. Now,
finally, the "Belarussian city has now embraced the artist,
with two museums honoring his life and his work."
Chicago Tribune 11/19/00
- A
NEW POMPEII: Last summer an international team of archeologists
raced to save Turkish treasures from rapidly rising flood waters.
"Some experts are now calling Zeugma, a 2,000-year-old Roman
garrison on the banks of the Euphrates, a "second Pompeii."
The floor mosaics that have been salvaged are among the most exquisite
in existence, rivaling the collection at the Bardo in Tunis, considered
the finest in the world." Chicago
Tribune 11/19/00
- BUT
IS IT ART? An artist claims to have created the first "serious"
art on a Palm Pilot. But is it really art? "While such pioneering
work is often interesting, the question is whether novelty alone
is a useful criterion for art or merely a great excuse for talking
about technology." Wired 11/20/00
Sunday
November 19
- WHEN
DESIGN ENTERS THE MUSEUM: "Leading curators all over
are bringing design into their art galleries, in an effort to
expand the scope of their programming, and of their audience."
But, as in the Guggenheim's Armani show, why do it if all you
end up doing is making an expensive commercial for a designer?
The Globe & Mail 11/19/00
- DEBATING
ART PRIZES: Is the Turner Prize good for art? Is it valuable
because it "gets people talking about creativity and ideas"
or is is bad because it steers art in the directions championed
by a select elite few?" The Observer
11/19/00
- THE
ACROPOLIS SUBWAY STRATEGY: In their latest attempt to get
Britain to return the Elgin marbles to Greece, the Greeks have
come up with a new tactic - a subway station at the base of the
Acropolis. "The Greeks have chosen this subway station to
send a message to thousands of people every day: The marble sculptures
that once adorned the Parthenon should come home from London.
To make the point, the inside of Akropoli station has been decorated
with replicas of the Parthenon Marbles." Washington
Post 11/19/00
Friday
November 17
- HELP
FOR THE BARNES: The Getty Trust gives the Barnes Foundation
$500,000 to help bail it out of financial difficulty. The help
also includes some Getty staff. "The grant is the first large
donation since the Barnes announced a $15 million emergency fund-raising
campaign last summer, and it gave the Barnes' leaders new hope
that they will be able to avoid closing the art-appreciation school
in Merion and its world-famous gallery of Cezannes, Renoirs, Matisses
and other works." Philadelphia
Inquirer 11/16/00
- ART
OF FAITH: An Australian prize for religious art begs the question
- just what does "religious" art mean today? "There
are plenty of examples of modern religious art, but not too many
that come bounding to mind. In part, of course, this is because
of the loosening of religion's grip on the modern psyche. But,
even more, it is because modern art put a lot of time, effort
and rhetoric into becoming a religion of its own."
Sydney Morning Herald 11/17/00
- THE
HUMAN BODY: "Though nudes are one of the most coherent
traditions in photography of the last century, a serious public
discussion about the motif of the human body, which has been used
extensively in all forms of communication and especially in advertising,
could not take place in such a codified area." But in the
last century, medical-technical photography, which goes from X-ray
images and video probes to the screening and scanning of single
cellsit has delivered increasingly spectacular and at the same
time abstract views of the human body. Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 11/17/00
- THE
HISTORY OF THE FUTURE: Some changes in American art coincide
with the changing of the millennium. Seven art scholars take a
look back over the 20th Century and speculate about what is to
come. American Art 11/00
- FOOTBRIDGE
FIX: Norman Foster's £18 million Millennium Footbridge across
the Thames, which opened last spring and was immediately shut
down because it swayed alarmingly when people were on it, will
be fixed. The fix will cost £5 million and take six months.
The Telegraph (London) 11/17/00
- THE
INFLATING CONTEMPORARY MARKET: A couple of years ago, when
Christie's began selling work by young contemporary artists, some
in the art world complained the move would falsely inflate the
value of such work. Bidding at the contemporary auction Thursday
night was vigorous and exceeded the high estimate for the session.
New York Times 11/17/00 (one-time
registration required for entry)
Thursday
November 16
- SCULPTURE
INTO THE SPOTLIGHT:
Citing a lack of recognition and funding for sculpture - "the
bridesmaid of the arts," the National Gallery of Australia
has inaugurated an annual National Sculpture Prize. Sydney
Morning Herald 11/16/00
- THE
BOOM GOES ON:
Six records were set at Christie’s first sale of post-war art
Wednesday night, which brought in a total of $59.7 million. The
buyers? "They're selective, but they'll spend big, big money."
New
York Times 11/16/00
(one-time registration required for
entry)
- CONTEMPORARY
RECORDS: A Rothko for $11 million, Calder for almost $4 million.
CNN.com 11/15/00
- SPECTACULAR
PHOTO COLLECTION: IN NEED OF A HOME:
"Britain, the first country to take the photograph seriously,
now gives it the shortest shrift in its national art museums.
There is no central, authoritative public photography collection."
Maybe the time has come to create one. The
Guardian (London) 11/15/00
- A
MAN AND HIS DOME:
Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, the former Disney exec brought in to run
the beleaguered Millennium Dome after its shaky start earlier
this year, announced in a radio interview that he will personally
purchase the attraction if no one else can be found to come to
its rescue. "I am telling you that, if it is not bought,
I am going to buy it myself." The
Telegraph (London) 11/16/00
- PYRAMID
PUZZLE REVEALED: The ancient Egyptians lined up the pyramids
acording to the position of the stars at the time. Their ability
to do that allows scientists now to pinpoint exactly when the
structures were built. "These stars were important for religious
reasons. The king hoped to join them for eternity after his death.
It was their alignment in the sky that enabled the architects
to align the pyramids with true north with the amazing accuracy
that has been puzzling scientists ever since." Discovery
11/16/00
Wednesday
November 15
- A
DAMNING REPORT: The British Museum is reportedly holding on
to a report about the fiasco surrounding the use of the wrong
stone for the museum's new portico. "Although it was supposed
to provide transparency and soothe anxieties over the portico
affair, informed sources say its disclosures are so embarrassing
to the museum that the museum's chairman will not countenance
its appearance until well after the Queen opens the Great Court
on 6 December." London Evening
Standard 11/15/00
- MOVE
OVER, GIOTTO:
Recently discovered Roman frescoes by Pietro Cavallini have thrown
into question the entire history of Western art, beginning with
who actually painted the Assisi basilica, long considered Giotto’s
masterwork. "Even in Italy, a country where it seems a priceless
work of art is uncovered every other week, Dr Strinati's discovery
was something of a surprise. The fragments found so far have been
enough to cause the first tremors of what could turn out to be
an earthquake in the history of art, dethroning Giotto from his
time-honoured position as the creator of the realistic tradition
of painting in Western art and replacing him with an obscure Roman
artist." The
Telegraph (London) 11/15/00
- 100,000
PLAINTIFFS GET A VOICE:
A federal judge in Manhattan ruled yesterday that a proposed $512
million settlement of the antitrust lawsuit against Sotheby's
and Christie's could be submitted for consideration to the more
than 100,000 buyers and sellers affected by the companies alleged
collusion and price-fixing. New
York Times 11/15/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
- THE
FALL AUCTION BOOM CONTINUES:
Eleven records were set at Sotheby's New York sale of contemporary
art this week. "On offer was consistently high-quality art
from all periods - everything from Abstract Expressionist and
Pop art to some 1990's artists new to the auction rooms. Of the
62 lots, only 12 failed to sell. The sale totaled $43.1 million."
New
York Times 11/15/00
(one-time
registrationrequired for entry)
- LOVE
OF THE NEW:
Phillip’s also saw sales beyond its high-bid estimates, taking
in $10.6 million and setting records for several artists’ work
including Damien Hirst. Warhol, DeKooning, and Basquiat were also
top sellers. CNN
(Reuters) 11/14/00
- THIS
IS PUNISHMENT? The elderly retired school teacher who defaced
a Chris Ofili painting in last year's "Sensation" show
at the Brooklyn Museum, gets a $250 fine for the act. Says the
judge: "So long as he has paint in his hand, he is to stay
away from the Brooklyn Museum." New
York Daily News 11/15/00
- GAMBLING
ON ART: The Las Vegas Venetian Hotel is spending $20 million
on its share of the new Guggenheim project that brings the museum
to the hotel. "The 63,000-square-foot hall, being built between
the Venetian and its parking garage, is slated to open in spring
2001." Las Vegas Sun 11/15/00
- STOLEN
PICASSOS: Police recover a fifth stolen Picasso in Turkey.
New Jersey Online (AP) 11/14/00
Tuesday
November 14
- WHO
GETS WHAT IN AUCTION SUIT: The some 100,000 plaintiffs in
the class action suits against Sotheby's and Christie's reveal
how they propose to split the $512 million settlement with the
companies. New York Times 11/14/00
(one-time registrationrequired for entry)
- THE
LINE BETWEEN ART AND COMMERCE: More and more museums are showing
commercial work sponsored by corporations. Commercial work as
in motorcycles or clothes or advertising. The shows have proven
popular both with audiences and corporate interests. But to what
extent are museums selling their souls for such shows?
Chronicle of Higher Education 11/13/00
- SISTER
WENDY DOES AMERICA: Sister Wendy has a new book out featuring
her visits to six museums in the United States. While she can
usually spot the best artwork, "it is difficult to dispel
an air of humbug surrounding the whole Sister Wendy phenomenon,
the way she has allowed herself, perhaps unwittingly, to be marketed
to the public by savvy packagers who know they have a good thing
going." New York Post 11/14/00
- A
DEALER'S MEMOIR: Chicago art dealer Richard Feigen sees art
endangered everywhere — "by a misplaced egalitarianism, by
a trendy, superheated market in contemporary art, by the fads
that museums do not always have the willpower to resist, by trustees
who wrest control from more knowledgeable museum directors and
curators, and by opportunists who use collections for their own
aggrandizement. Indeed, he provides plenty of scandalous examples
of exactly these problems as they have affected major collections."
Book Magazine 11/00
Monday
November 13
- STOLEN
CEZANNE SEIZED: "The French courts have ordered the seizure
of 'The sea at l’Estaque' by Paul Cézanne, currently on show in
the Musée du Luxembourg as part of the exhibition “From Fra Angelico
to Bonnard: masterpieces from the Rau Collection”, at the request
of Michel Dauberville who claims it was stolen from his grandfather,
gallery owner Josse Bernheim-Jeune, during World War II."
The Art Newspaper 11/10/00
- GETTING
MORE SERIOUS ABOUT STOLEN ART:
Christie’s announced that it has helped raise $500,000 for opening
up Nazi documentation which is in Russian archives, while Sotheby’s
is to assist the Council of Europe in setting up a central website
on looted art. These moves reflect the auctioneers’ growing concerns
over the problem of war loot. The
Art Newspaper 11/10/00
- THE
OLD SUPPLY AND DEMAND PROBELM:
Last week’s big auction sales in New York starkly reflect the
problems of an almost overly robust art market: There are now
so many wealthy buyers ready to throw their disposable income
onto their walls that the auction houses are having trouble meeting
demand with high-quality works. "Rich collectors are under
no financial pressure to sell, and when they decide to do so they
often have hopelessly unrealistic, some would say greedy, expectations
of the prices they will get. This problem is compounded by the
fact that three auction houses are now fishing in a pool where
once only two cast their bait." The
Telegraph (London) 11/13/00
- WHERE
ART AND VALUES COLLIDE: JSG Boggs travels the world racking
up bills that he then offers to settle with his drawings of money
at face value. Think this $100 bill isn't worth a $100? You'd
be a fool not to take it. New Statesman
11/13/00
- ANOTHER
USE FOR CRAWL SPACE:
With its collection bursting the seams of its main museum spaces,
the Metropolitan Museum of Art has created a new Byzantine art
gallery to be unveiled this week in the dark, brick-lined space
beneath its Grand Staircase - nicknamed "the Crypt."
New
York Times 11/13/00
(one-time registration required for
entry)
- BUILD
ON THIS: Promoting a movement called the "second modernity"
Holland is considered to be Europe's top nation for architecture.
Is it? The Independent 11/13/00
- A
BATH FOR ART: The owner of an seniors' home in the UK called
his insurance company after a water tank drenched the lower floor
of his house. "While counting the cost of repairs, they found
the torrent had washed away a coat of grime which coated the dining
room ceiling below. And to their amazement, they realised the
panels were decorated with antique paintings, hidden from view
for decades at the 250-year-old residential home. The paintings
are worth £500,000. The Sun (UK) 11/13/00
Sunday
November 12
- BRITISH
MUSEUMS GET EXTRA MONEY: "Museums and galleries funded
by the Government are to receive an extra £46 million over the
next three years. Some £22 million will pay for urgent repairs
and improvements to many of the ailing buildings, including leaking
roofs at the British Museum and the National Gallery."
The Times (London) 11/11/00
- BUILDINGS
YOU HAVE TO LOVE: Has London gone back to the sixties? "London
is again a swinging world capital, we have a Labour Government
that wants to "modernise", the economy just goes on
booming, billions of pounds are promised on roads programmes,
immigration has returned as a political issue and architects can
do no wrong. Today, Government ministers fall over themselves
to praise new buildings and the public flock to each new excitement.
As in the Sixties, it is no longer fashionable to be sceptical
about modern architecture." The
Telegraph (London) 11/12/00
- THE
BRITISH MUSEUM'S GREAT NEW SUCCESS: Controversy has dogged
the new addition to the British Museum. "The project used
the wrong stone; the museum was playing fast and loose with planning
permission by building too high..." But now that the scaffolding
is down and the building is about to reopen, the project looks
brilliant. The Observer (London) 11/12/00
- NOW
THAT WE"VE DONE LAS VEGAS: Guggenheim officials arrived
in Rio de Janeiro this week to look at possible sites for a Latin
American affiliate - "a museum that Brazil hopes would become
a must-see on the international art circuit." CNN.com
11/11/00
- CASSATT
PAINTINGS SURFACE: Acollection of 204 paintings and drawings
by American impressionist Mary Cassatt is being seen by the public
for the first time. "Cassatt sold the drawings, prints and
etchings to a Paris art dealer early in the 1900s. They have been
in private hands ever since. 'These are so pure. It's as if they
haven't even been out of the studio'." Dallas
Morning News 11/12/00 (AP)
- OXBRIDGE
BUILDING BOOM: There's a building boom going on the campuses
of Oxford and Cambridge. "Cambridge and Oxford are both as
much modern architectural zoos as ancient seats of learning. A
glance at the roll call of architects building new colleges and
faculties, and extending old ones, in the two cities shows how
jealously they observe and mimic each other's activities."
The Sunday Times (London) 11/12/00
Friday
November 10
- A
DOWN MARKET: The Picasso might have sold for $55 million,
but otherwise this week's art auction sales in New York were major
disappointments. Some 40 percent or more of the artwork failed
to sell. New York Times 11/10/00
(one-time registration required
for entry)
- MATISSE
SELLS FOR RECORD $17 MILLION: While works by Aristide Maillol
and Berthe Morisot also set artists' records, featured works by
Degas, van Gogh, Renoir and Cezanne failed to find buyers at the
sale of impressionist and modern art. Only 60 percent of the lots
were sold. Washington Post (Reuters)
11/10/00
- BLOCKBUSTING:
Are museum blockbuster shows ruining museums? One art historian
believes so. "Masterpieces are shunted around the world,
often against the advice of conservation departments, primarily
to bring prestige to the lenders, publicity to the sponsors and
paying customers to the host institutions. Small or penurious
institutions are deprived of their treasures, and objects which,
for one reason or another, cannot be lent are increasingly neglected:
less and less attention is paid, for example, to large pictures
and artists who specialised in them." The
Economist 11/10/00
Thursday
November 9
- RECORD
SALE: A rare Picasso from the artist's blue period sells at
auction for $55 million. The price is a record for the artist
at auction and the fifth highest price for any work at auction."
New York Times 11/09/00 (one-time
registration required for entry)
- WALL
PAINTING: "Frescoes nearly 2,000 years old have been
unearthed near Pompeii in the remains of what experts say may
have been an ancient luxury hotel." Chicago
Tribune (AP) 11/09/00
- GIOTTO
REBURIAL CANCELED: "Plans to rebury the skeleton of Giotto,
the father of European painting, have been canceled in Florence,
Italy, following objections by Pittsburgh archaeologist and art
historian Franklin Toker, who argues Giotto's supposed remains
may be only 'the bones of some fat butcher'." Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette 11/08/00
Wednesday
November 8
- IN
NEED OF SOME PR MAGIC:
The Terra Museum of American Art in Chicago, with a collection
valued at more than $100 million and works by many American masters,
is woefully unknown to most Americans - art historians included.
Now the museum’s board has been split by a venomous legal battle
and the board has voted to sell off some of its prize portraits.
New
York Times 11/08/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
- MILLIONS
FOR MISTRESSES:
Picasso’s portraits of his lovers consistently outsell work by
almost every other artist who’s ever lived. In fact, four of the
world’s most expensive paintings are of his mistresses, with another
poised to join the list when "Femme au Bras Croisés"
goes on the block at Christie’s in New York Wednesday. "Why
are they wanted, Picasso’s women, at such vast sums? Are they
simply rich men’s fantasies? Are their prices multi-million dollar
love affairs - money without limit for sex without consent?"
The
Times (London) 11/08/00
- THE
COFFIN REOPENS:
A team of Japanese researchers plans to conduct the first ever
DNA analysis of the 3,300-year-old mummy of Tutankhamen to try
to the establish the long contested cause of his death. Daily
Yomiuri (Japan) 11/08/00
Tuesday
November 7
- THE
BRITISH MUSEUM'S NEW GLORY: The fuss, in recent months, has
been all about the British Museum's use of the wrong kind of stone
for its new portico. "Yet now the scaffolding has been removed,
it is evident that the critics have simply latched on to one mistake
and failed to perceive the greater glory of the whole. Norman
Foster’s treatment of the Great Court wonderfully ennobles the
austere Greek Revival architecture of Sir Robert Smirke."
The Times (London) 11/07/00
- CLEMENT
GREENBERG'S COLLECTION: "The persistent fascination with
Greenberg, who died in 1994, extends to his art collection, the
acquisition of which was announced last month by the Portland
Art Museum in Oregon. Comparing the Greenberg acquisition, the
second- largest in the museum's history, to "going from zero
to 60 miles an hour," museum director John Buchanan added,
'I am a great believer that museum collections are built by collecting
collections'." New York Times
11/07/00 (one-time registration
required for entry)
Monday
November 6
- A
COPYCAT SHOW: A gallery called the Outrageous Art Gallery
in Edinburgh claims "to have used a worldwide network of
forgers to produce exact copies of works displayed in the Scottish
Colourists exhibition" currently on display at Scotland's
National Gallery of Modern Art. Curators at the museum are not
at all happy. The Guardian (London)
11/06/00
- GIOTTO
OR NOT GIOTTO: Two months ago a team of scientists in Italy
announced they had reconstructed a skeleton found 30 years ago
under the Florence Cathedral. It was Giotto, they said. Now an
an American art historian who led excavations under the cathedral
in the 70s has written to the church's cardinal to debunk the
claim. "For heaven's sake, your eminence, do not treat it
as Giotto. You risk blessing and honouring the bones of a fat
butcher." The Guardian 11/06/00
- CHINA
TAKING STEPS ON STOLEN ART: China is said to be near to signing
a pact with the US on reducing the flow of smuggled art. "This
would include obligations on the US to prevent museums and similar
institutions from acquiring illegally exported cultural property
from China; a prohibition of the import into the US of Chinese
cultural property stolen from a museum, public monument, or institution;
and the mandatory return of such items once found in the US."
The Art Newspaper 11/05/00
- DAMAGING
THROUGH RESTORATION: India's Ajanta paintings, which easily
rank among the world’s most precious heritage sites, are being
restored. But a leading expert warns that "the cleaning methods
employed at the caves and the level of skills of the workers engaged
in the cleaning have seriously damaged the Ajanta paintings and
led to a demonstrable loss of pigment."
The Art Newspaper 11/06/00
- RETHINKING
THE CUTTING EDGE: "Artists who think they are up-to-date,
just because they use digital technologies, are making a "critical
error. Many new areas of research are bubbling that cry out for
artistic attention, such as 'biosensors' that can alter the senses
of touch and taste." Wired 11/06/00
- A
PRIZE NEEDS A POINT: The Britsh Stirling Prize for architecture
has been awarded, and good luck to them all. "I don't want
to sound curmudgeonly, but I don't get the Stirling prize and
I'm not sure what good it does architecture. True, everyone likes
a prize. Remember Alice in Wonderland, when the Dodo organised
a caucus race for the animals? After they had run around in circles
for a bit, the Dodo decided that 'everybody has won and all must
have prizes'." The Guardian (London)
11/06/00
- GERMAN
ART AFTER THE WALL: "The world has spread the rumor that
post-communist culture only uses its newly-won freedom to ape
western strategies, that it is no longer fundamentally distinguishable
from what we know as western art. The exhibition from Stockholm's
Moderna Museet now on display in Berlin succeeds in proving the
contrary. Eastern Europe is still a separate continent."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 11/06/00
Sunday
November 5
- THE
NEW BREED OF ART SELLER: In Toronto, a quiet revolution in
the way art galleries are presenting their work. "The new
dealers tend to hunt out work they like, then simply hang it on
the wall to see what happens." That means mixing artists
and group shows. " Instead of having to come to grips with
a single body of work, take it or leave it, customers now had
a menu of art options to browse through, as in any other store.
And that seemed to make them feel at home, and readier to buy."
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) 11/04/00
- MUSEUMS
MOST TRUSTWORTHY: "A recently released study shows that
43-percent of Americans consider museums to be 'more trustworthy'
than any other information source." In second place, cited
by 18 percent of the respondents, were books. Write
News 11/05/00
- DEFINING
"HISPANIC?" The newly-opened National Hispanic Cultural
Center of New Mexico in Albuquerque was "designed to show
off the multiplicity of cultures gathered under the umbrella term
'Hispanic.' The design of the complex makes that clear with a
melange of Aztec, Mayan, Pueblo, modernist and Spanish idioms."
Dallas Morning News 11/05/00
- MAKING
OUR BUILDINGS WORK: "You can choose not to watch a television
show. But bad architecture, whether it is a hulking condominium
tower or a gargantuan "McMansion" home that looms over
its neighbors, is much harder to avoid. And it doesn't go away
for decades. That's why, in today's building boom, the fight to
preserve the past is taking on urgent meaning. Instead of watching
passively from the sidelines, more and more people are becoming
involved in an attempt to control the character of their communities."
Chicago Tribune 11/05/00
- THE
VALUE OF ART ON YOUR WALL: Two French boys who used pins to
tack a "poster" to their bedroom wall, discover that
the picture may be a previously unknown Delacroix and worth £3
million. The Mirror (London) 11/05/00
Friday
November 3
- WAS
RED HIS FAVORITE COLOR? "Picasso as a Cold Warrior for
the Evil Empire? Although the artist's membership in the Communist
Party in the late 1940s and early '50s is well known, it has been
largely ignored by scholars as a casual flirtation, with slight,
if any, bearing on his art." A new book wonders if it really
was so casual. ARTNews 11/00
- PAINTING
PEOPLE: "Portraits have in the past been marginalised
from accounts of 20th-century art." But a new show at London's
National Portrait Gallery makes one realis quickly "the extent
to which great painters throughout the century have wanted to
explore the challenge of representation even when it was unfashionable."
The Telegraph (London) 11/03/00
- DIA'S
PUSH TO GROW: New York's Dia Center gets $50 million to help
build a new facility, maintain its large-scale artwork and develop
a national presence concentrating on art from the 1960s and 70s.
New York Times 11/03/00 (one-time
registration required for entry)
- OKAY,
SO MAYBE SOME OF IT ISN'T REAL, BUT... Earlier this year Canada's
National Gallery was offered a $100 million gift of 1,800 Chinese
and neolithic antiquities from a collector, but the proposed gift
was withdrawn after experts questioned the autheticity of some
of the art. Now Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum has stepped up
to accept the stash, despite the experts' concerns. The
Globe and Mail (Toronto) 11/03/00
- BUT
WHAT'S REAL IS CHOICE: "It
is the largest single donation to a cultural institution in
Canadian history. The collection features work dating from
the Neolithic period of 3000 BC through to the T'ang Dynasty
of 900 AD. The 1,800 pieces will be packed up in Ottawa and
shipped to the ROM next week. The museum plans to mount an
exhibition by next spring." Ottawa
Citizen 11/03/00
- TIME
CAPSULE: A wooden ship — perhaps 1,500 years old — has been
found in the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey. The cold water
it has sat in has kept it "remarkably preserved. Discovery
11/03/00
Thursday
November 2
- RETURN
TO FOUNDER: The controversial founders of the McMichael art
collection in Ontario are to be returned to control of the troubled
museum after the provincial government passed legislation to end
the gallery's ambitions to modernize its collection. Museum professionals
across Canada have protested the move. The
Globe and Mail (Toronto) 11/02/00
- ART
FOR THE PEOPLE: A dealer is setting up a website to sell high
quality digital print reproductions. "Among them will be
paintings, watercolors, prints and photographs by artists ranging
from Winslow Homer, Maurice Prendergast and Georges Seurat to
Andy Warhol, Alex Katz and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The images are
being licensed from museums, private collections, artists and
the estates of Warhol, Man Ray and others. The point is to make
high-quality works of art available at prices that beginning art
buyers can afford - from $150 to $700." Washington
Post 11/02/00
- THE
ART OF DIPLOMACY:
American art from the official residence of Richard C. Holbrooke,
the United States representative at the U.N., is currently on
public display. "It was made possible by Art in Embassies,
a little-known and much beloved State Department program. Started
in 1964, the program is based on a simple idea: artists, collectors
and museums lend artworks, old and new, to United States embassies
and residences as a way of introducing foreign guests to American
culture." New
York Times 11/02/00
(one-time registration required for
entry)
- THE
VALUE OF A GOOD APPRAISER: The estate of an Arizona woman
sold a collection of her paintings for $60, unaware that they
were worth much more - $1 million. "The estate sought to
overturn the sale, arguing that it was based upon a mutual mistake
regarding the paintings' value." The judge says no.
CNN 11/02/00
Wednesday
November 1
- WILL
THE KIMBELL MUSEUM LEAVE FORT WORTH? "Quietly, in little-noticed
legal maneuvers over the past two years and with the silent blessing
of the City Council, the social contract Kimbell forged with Fort
Worth has been dismantled. Few noticed, but the change meant that
the people no longer held ultimate claim to the museum and its
collection." The final step came on August 15, when the Fort
Worth City Council voted away protections that would keep the
museum in town. Fort Worth Weekly
10/31/00
- THE
IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD NAME
President Clinton has signed a bill to change the name of the
National Museum of American Art to the Smithsonian American Art
Museum, which will affect all 22 museums and research institutes
run by the Smithsonian Institution. "As we send more and
more traveling exhibits across the country and create affiliations
with museums in all 50 states, it's important for people to be
able to recognize instantly that the Smithsonian has come to their
town." New
Jersey Online (AP) 10/31/00
- BUYER’S
REVENGE:
In the midst of the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation,
a class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Sotheby’s and
Christie’s customers alleging price-fixing and collusion among
both companies’ top executives. New
York Times 11/01/00
(one-time registration required for
entry)
- COMING
TO TERMS WITH THE PAST: Germany has only recently begun to
come to terms with what to do with art stolen during the Nazi
era. But finding solutions is problematic. "What was legal
in this criminal era? Was there a semi-normality and a decent,
civil art market in the early years of the Nazi regime? This might
be determined on the basis of the prices obtained on the art market.
Or should all sales of art owned by Jews after 1933 be regarded
as 'a result of persecution'?" Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 11/01/00
- THE
WRITING ON THE WALL: Wall texts in museums have gotten completely
out of hand. People spend more time reading the text than they
do looking at the art. Is it time to cut back? A critic talks
the issue over with a curator. The
Globe and Mail (Toronto) 11/01/00
- TRIANGULAR
COMPETITION:
As the major auction houses gear up for their big fall sales over
the next two weeks, a third player is giving them a run for their
money. "The historical tug-of-war between Sotheby's and Christie's
has turned into an expensive three-way fight. Since LVMH bought
Phillips, the London-based auction house a year ago, it has been
going after property at any cost, dipping into LVMH's deep pockets
to become a major player." New
York Times 11/01/00
(one-time registration required for
entry)
- WELCOME
BACK, DEALERS:
Once the center of the art auction world, France has handled only
5% of international art sales in recent decades due to an antiquated,
protectionist system that has prohibited foreign auction houses
from selling in Paris. But now imminent reforms will soon end
French auctioneers’ monopoly and open the door to a more vibrant
art market. "Many new foreign dealers have already opened
branches in Paris in recent months and are eagerly awaiting the
starting gun." The
Age (Melbourne) (DPA) 11/01/00
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